Scheifele and Laine Named First Stars

As most of you already know, Patrik Laine was named the NHL’s First Star of the Week last week. His five goal game against the Blues made him an incredibly easy choice for the weekly award. You already know all of these things, so why am I telling you this?

I’m telling you this because the Jets keep rolling in the awards from the NHL. This week it was Mark Scheifele’s turn to take home the weekly honours of First Star of the Week.

Scheifele, along with the rest of the team, had a great week as they went 3-1 and most recently rallied from three goals down to beat the Rangers in a shootout. There’s no doubt that Scheifele deserved these honours as he tallied five goals and three assists during the week. Not only did he score five goals, but he also closed out the game against the Devils as he scored the game winning goal in overtime. To top it all off he also scored the winning goal in the shootout against the Rangers although that one doesn’t count in the stat column.

Most regular-season overtime goals, @NHLJets team history (since 2011-12):

This overtime goal also puts Mark Scheifele first on the team in overtime goals since the Jets came back to Winnipeg. If Scheifele’s already setting records for the Jets, one has to wonder how many more he will break throughout the years to come.

While it’s nice for Scheifele to get the First Star of the Week, it could be argued that Scheifele has been playing this well all season. He currently sits ninth in the NHL with 16 goals and tenth with 32 points. It’s clear that Scheifele isn’t just a goal scorer as he tallies tons of assists and also plays against the opposing team’s best lines on a nightly basis.

While this easily could turn into a post about how much we all love Scheifele, there are some other things worth mentioning as Scheifele wasn’t the only one to win a First Star award recently.

We referenced above how Patrik Laine has been absolutely destroying other teams lately so the NHL decided to award him the First Star of the Month for November. Once again, this isn’t much of a surprise as Laine smashed all kinds of records and was doing things that haven’t been done since the 90’s.

Any time that you can accomplish something that hasn’t been done since Pavel Bure, that’s a good sign. Many people were starting to doubt the young superstar, especially after his woes at even strength to start the year. However, based on his shot totals and historical shooting percentage, Laine was a prime candidate to catch fire and start scoring like past seasons. While nobody quite expected such a crazy outburst, he’s been sensational since playing in Finland.

You could say that Laine has answered all of the questions that people were asking. Actually, questions still remain, but people are now asking if Laine could set some modern scoring records such as eclipsing Stamkos’ 60 goals back in 2011-12 or even possibly reaching Ovechkin’s 65 goals in 2007-08. While those totals might seem far-fetched, the sky’s the limit for the Finnish superstar when he’s playing like this.

The last piece of news regarding a Jets player didn’t make as many headlines, although it’s still impressive. Blake Wheeler just became the fastest American player to record 30 assists in NHL history. Wheeler did this in only 26 games, which also set a franchise record. That’s quite impressive considering how many great American players have played in the NHL. For Wheeler to become the fastest ever, that is an impressive feat. While this isn’t garnering league-wide attention like Laine, it’s still a noteworthy record for the Captain.